Oxfordshire County Council has delivered one of the largest on-street charging projects with a £700,000 government grant for the scheme.
Residents in the area can now apply for the scheme to charge an electric vehicle (EV) outside their own home. It will benefit around 500 residents without access to off-street driverways, providing charging through a charging cable.
The project will allow the cable from a home charger to safely cross the pavement and connect to a kerbside EV without causing a trip hazard.
It is part of a wider programme that will see at least 1,200 public EV chargers installed across the county by the end of 2027 as part of Oxfordshire’s local EV infrastructure (LEVI) funding, announced in 2024.
Although the products don’t allow for designated bays, previous trials revealed that residents near to users of the chargepoints were “sensitive to their parking needs” and allowed them to park vehicles outside their properties to charge.
In the pilot scheme, the resident will pay the council £300, which includes a site survey, the installation of a channel and a licence to use the channel for the first two years.
After the second year, they will have to pay the council an annual fee of around £100 to use the channel, which covers operating costs.
Once the £700,000 pilot funding has been used to install the first 500 EV charging cable gullies, the scheme may continue but is expected to be fully funded by residents.
Summertown resident Guy Hargreaves, who took part in a similar but smaller trial in 2022, said:
“My EV charging cable channel works so brilliantly that I can’t find a single fault in the product. I would recommend it to all EV and prospective EV owners who only have on-street parking adjacent to their properties without the slightest hesitation.
“The charging channel allows us to minimise the use of commercial chargers, whose rates are still a little too high at present. And, of course, being able to charge at home is safe and convenient.”
Councillor Judy Roberts, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet member for Place, Environment and Climate Action, said:
“A third of Oxfordshire householders don’t have off street parking, so we believe this could be a real game-changer and give residents the confidence to switch to an EV.
“Being able to access home electricity rates and park in your usual spot are the sorts of things that are likely to make EV ownership a reality for many local people.
“We are confident that the scheme will be enthusiastically received and that this opportunity – alongside the major programme of public EV charger installation that we are about to embark on – will mean EV ownership will really take off in Oxfordshire in the next few years.”
Image courtesy of Oxfordshire County Council
